Looking across the landscape of contemporary culture

World Youth Day 2016 in London

I keep hearing whispers about the possibility of World Youth Day 2015 taking place in Krakow. But what has happened to all the post-Madrid noise about WYD coming to London? I think we need to stir it up a bit more. Or is it dead in the water already?

As you can see, I went for 2016 instead, which gives us another year – a three year gap after Rio.

Here is the pitch:

We believe that the next World Youth Day, after Rio 2013, should take place in Britain in 2016, with the main events and closing Mass in London. And we’ll be there! There will never be a better time: post-Papal Visit, post-Olympics, the faith and energy of young Catholics here, the sense of renewal and hope within the Catholic Church in this country, the pull of the English language, and the attraction of Britain as a destination for visitors. WYD has already been to Poland, France, Italy, German and Spain – it’s time to come to Britain!

We could put on the best WYD there has ever been. It would revitalise the Church and be an incredible witness to the people of this country. It would be a truly national event, bringing together every Catholic diocese, parish, group and movement. It wouldn’t distract from other important pastoral priorities – instead it would provide a focus and stimulus for them. The period of planning and preparation would galvanise the Church at national and local levels. The ‘Days in the Dioceses’, in the week before WYD itself, would be a celebration of faith throughout the regions, with hundreds of thousands of international young pilgrims welcomed into parishes and families across Britain. And there could be an important ecumenical dimension too, with Catholics and other Christian communities cooperating in hospitality, witness and celebration.

London would be the focus for the main WYD events and closing Mass. Why? Not because of some unthinking ‘London-centric’ prejudice in favour of the capital, but simply because of the practical advantages. London has the venues, the infrastructure, the transport, the public spaces – the sheer size; and it will have the experience of dealing with the Olympics. In the three dioceses that converge there (Westminster, Southwark and Brentwood), it has the greatest number of Catholic parishes and movements, the richest concentration of Catholic life, and an incomparable diversity of people and communities. And it has a unique pull in the international imagination – witness the time of the Royal Wedding. It would be ‘London uniting the country and opening out to the world’, rather than ‘London excluding the regions’.

Yes, there would be significant costs. But unlike the recent Papal visit, WYD would pay for itself. If just half a million pilgrims register (a conservative estimate), and the fee is just £50, that’s £25m to start with, even before the serious fundraising has begun. And despite the misgivings of some, no-one seriously doubts that this kind of event brings massive economic benefits to the host country. The Papal visit, for example, brought an £8.5m boost to Glasgow alone; and a £12.5m boost to Birmingham. According to an independent report from PricewaterhouseCoopers, WYD Madrid brought 354m Euros to Spain [see links below]. This is one reason why the British Government, and Boris Johnson (as Mayor of London), will surely be interested in it. But there would be deeper reasons are well: the opportunity of hosting what is perhaps the largest youth event in the world, of opening our doors to people from every corner of the earth, and of putting young people at the centre of the national agenda.

At the moment, this is an off-the-cuff, un-thought-out, testing-the-water kind of proposition. It began in the parks and cafes of Madrid at WYD 2011, when thousands of young people from the UK began to think ‘We could do this!’ And this Facebook event itself started as a response to the enthusiasm shown on the Krakow WYD Facebook event page, and the feeling that we in Britain should be just as enthusiastic as the Poles. If we overtake the Krakow WYD event numbers (currently at 3,242 on 15 Jan), then it’s probably time to start thinking and praying about this more seriously.

So if you want to see it move forward, INVITE YOUR FRIENDS – TODAY!! And we’ll see where we are in a couple of weeks. The question is: Do we care as much as the Poles?

What do you think? Post your own comments, suggestions, criticisms, links, etc. in the box below.

I like the idea of the UK hosting, since it’s never held a WYD before. Poland already had one in Czestachowa, and that country is already so Catholic it’s not even funny. As the protests surrounding Pope Benedict’s UK visit and WYD Madrid showed, public demonstrations of Catholic piety are a powerful confounding witness to Europe’s secular culture. The CatholicYouthWork article did raise a good point about other UK cities though. Why not a pilgrimage to Canterbury?

[…] With WYD in Rio only 557 days away (parishes should already be talking about how to support a young person, more on this later) Fr Stephen Wang of the Diocese of Westminster is suggesting that London would make an appropriate host city for the following WYD on his blog Bridges and Tangents. […]

I read the article against hosting WYD. My experience of living in Sydney in 2008 is that WYD is not a youth event for the host city. It’s more a diocese, a parish and a school event. Many pilgrims slept in Catholic schools and the teachers were drafted in to serve meals and supervise. Days in the Diocese events happened in the churches so parishioners were on hand to serve lunch, fire up the BBQ, make sure the toilets were unlocked etc. The events themselves were attended by parishioners old and young. Our parish sent 3 bus loads of parishioners to the final Mass, half of them over 60. There was a small group of young people from our parish that went to the Days in the Diocese events but our AP was put in charge of managing the Vocations Expo and our Parish Priest was busy managing without him, so there wasn’t a huge amount of time to prepare them. The long term results have not been a huge uplift in Catholic practice among the youth of Sydney, but like the visit of the pope to the UK, it has left a positive impression of the Catholic Church on the people of Sydney. Many Catholic parents and children now know what WYD is. The parents want their children to travel to WYD when they are old enough and the children can’t wait to go. There have also been longer term benefits in the diocese and parishes that come from people knowing each other better because they worked together.

I wrote the article on CatholicYouthWork.com to which you refer above.

You’ve written an interesting piece here and one which I know will generate discussion among youth workers.

Most of the youth ministry community are convinced that WYD will come to the UK eventually, and there is nobody who doesn’t like that fact. It’s an exciting prospect and, as I noted in the article, if it were to happen after Rio, the Youth Ministry community would get behind it, no doubt.

I stand by my assertion that 2015/ 2016 would be a bit soon and I also stand by the point that a WYD without grass-roots development of youth ministry would be a massively wasted opportunity.

Consider this… the next WYD after Rio will be announced in little over a year, and will already be well in to the planning stages. It may not be decided yet (though I think it probably is) but, put it this way… nobody at CYMFed or CBCEW, from what I know, is talking seriously about WYD 2015/ 2016 in England. If it were to happen, they would have been thinking about it – and indeed making definite concrete plans with multiple staff – for a long time now.

Krakow 2015/ 2016, from what I am hearing, is pretty much decided. The 30th anniversary of WYD in the birthplace of its founder, on the 10th anniversary of his death. It just works! The Polish Bishops have formally requested it, and we can bet it’s going to happen. We are, alas, too late!

As I said though, if the PCL do decide to bring it here after Rio, I know that the youth ministry community will get behind it and make it amazing!

The advent of CYMFed and the Papal Visit have given a lot of momentum to youth ministry, and it looks as though we are going to come close to selling out Wembley Arena for Flame Congress in March too. Great building blocks, for sure.

After Krakow, it will go outside Europe. My guess is Johannesburg, but who knows. After that…. well, just maybe!

Thanks Jack – I appreciate all this. My post (and the Facebook event page) was very spontaneous – it’s not really a campaign, just a reaction to the Krakow news. Above all, I’m curious about what the interest levels are in this country. You are probably right, especially if Krakow is already determined. But let’s see what the buzz is!

About this blog

Looking across the landscape of contemporary culture - at the arts, science, religion, politics, philosophy; sorting through the jumble; seeing what stands out, what unsettles, what intrigues, what connects, what sheds light. Father Stephen Wang is a Catholic priest in the Diocese of Westminster, London. He is currently Senior University Chaplain, based at Newman House Catholic Chaplaincy. [Banner photo with kind permission of Matthew Powell]

Email Subscription

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Images Policy

As far as I know none of the image use in this blog is against copyright law. Images copied here are either (i) my own or (ii) out of copyright or (iii) used under a Creative Commons License [CCL], which means (roughly, usually) that the photographer (or copyright owner) has agreed the unedited image can be used non-commercially with proper attribution. If I mark an image as CCL it means that I have used the image under a CCL; it does not mean that I am now licensing this image with a CCL.